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Registered migration agents and lawyers hit back at Immigration Chief Michael Pezzullo on accusations the 457 visa was used as a pathway to obtaining permanent residency.

Mr Pezzullo made his comments to Senate in the last week of May 2017 which is closely related to similar comments from Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and the former Immigration Minister Scott Morrison.

The Immigration Chief’s exact comments were “The whole migration agent and lawyer sector, in effect, has — I will not say gamed the visa, but it has constructed the visa such that it is sold or marketed or put to clients as a proxy permanent pathway,”.

Four in every five workers on the 457 visas were granted employer-nominated permanent visas in 2015-2016 alone and
the National Vice President of the Migration Institute of Australia Mr Jonathan Granger says “The statement sullies the reputation of registered migration agents and lawyers in Australia”.

So the question is why did prime Minister Turnbull back the 457 visa’s role in permanent migration in a joint press conference with then New Zealand Prime Minister John Key. Even back in 2013 the then Immigration Minister Scott Morrison said “that pathway from temporary to permanent, if managed well, has great opportunities for this country”.